Home Improvement

Deathwing_sl said:

Good idea, I will get pictures as soon as it's not cold as fuck.

No, you can't dry the wet spots. After cleaning up everything(seriously, it was fucking dirty back there...the rotted wood was there for so long I thought someone had purposefully put mulch back there to soak up water), and still having water seep in on dry days, I went back with a hair dryer and did as you suggested. I can literally watch the water seep back in a matter of minutes.

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Well, sorry, man. You're going to have to dig that crap out and do proper foundation prep to get that water to move where you want it to.

Plus, if the wood is totally rotted, you'll likely want to replace that anyway, right?

Picasso_sl said:

Finally it sounds like someone lives in a bigger shithole than me.

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My house isn't currently a shithole, but you should have seen it when I bought it.

Crack house. Cooked meth in this house. Didn't have a garbage service for 9 months, all the garbage in the garage. That includes the diapers of the kids living here.

This was a fucking shit hole. Anything can be fixed. My house just appraised for more than 160K more than I paid for it, and I'm not done, yet.

Deathwing_sl said:

No, my kitchen cabinets are fabulous.

Let me clarify, the wood that's supporting(and I'm not even sure it was doing that) the concrete stairs is rotted out. I can do without that and if it provided structural support, it can be easily replaced.

I hope you're not suggesting I need to put in some in-ground drainage, that shit is not cheap. If it's any helpful, the topsoil nearest the actual house is bone dry. I don't actually know if ground water is getting near the important parts of the foundation.

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Now that is curious. When it's not frozen, you should do some digging right outside where it is wet. If your hole fills with water, you've got a spring in a shitty spot. And in any case, digging is going to be necessary to find out where the water is coming from.

And it doesn't have to be really expensive to properly prepare a foundation. Dig to four or so feet below grade, add three or so feet of gravel outside the foundation after covering the foundation with a barrier, and you're great. If you can get a silt sleeve covered drainage pipe that you can direct to a french well 10 or so feet from the foundation, you're better than good.

Ima have to take your advice on weatherization. I have owned my home for 6 years now and have not weatherized it in that time other than some really basic stuff like installing a door sweep.

My dishwasher broke yesterday. Today is a sad day, bros. Or it was. Apparently they aren't too difficult to fix so let it begin.

Deathwing

It is funny as what you are describing is similar to the house I just purchased. I bough a ranch on a hill so the basement walks out to the backyard. Anyway the front porch has its own foundation and the previous owners have used it for cool storage, but it is very damp in there (drips of water on wall and ceiling) and just sealing the inside of the block may prevent the water but will not stop the water from eventually ruining the foundation, so I need to come up with a better solution.

Does the damp area in you house have a dirt floor? If so digging a hole in the dirt and seeing if it fills with water may be a hint whether it is ground water and not run off water. When I see pictures I am sure I may be able to help more.

Deathwing_sl said:

Yeah, well, I think even that is above my experience level. I'm a complete noob when it comes to house repair. All I know is that water's getting in and while I have it contained with towels, aluminum trough pans, and a dehumidifier, I'd rather have a more permanent solution. If only because that dehumidifier sucks down tons of wattage.

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Well, start simple, then. In the spring, dig around the foundation. Get a good foundation coating, back fill with gravel, top it off with soil. See what happens. Not expensive, and you can work a shovel and a roller. And it might be that easy to fix. That will at least help, and it might help enough that after doing that, running a dehumidifier takes care of the rest of the problem.

Picasso_sl said:

kitchen is 14'2" by 8'5" with a 54 inch doorway entering.

here's what i'm thinking for the layout now. I have a full size fridge and in that first left corner is the only place i can recess it some so it doesn't choke everything off.

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I think that looks great! One thought - is it wide enough that someone can stand at the stove and the sink at the same time and have someone walk between them? You might want to offset your sink from your cook top for traffic flow.
Also, have you considered getting a counter-depth fridge? Might feel better in a space like that. I have friends who have one, and are entirely happy with it. Doesn't feel small to them.

lanx_sl said:

so it seems my adventure in weatherization (sealing up the place and putting up plastic) seemed to have worked. my bill was 63 bucks to keep the place at a constant 73, my upstairs neighbor says he pays in the hundreds and his recent bill was 113, he keeps it at 70ish also (we both have women heh).

my radiators are barely on, even in this neg20 windchill, i do have a vornado humidifier keeping 45humidity, that probably helps. (tho i've had to refill it more since it got colder, i figure the radiator really turns on, and dries up the place).

i've since gone to the walmart (with my neighbor)... actually we had to goto walmart/sears and kmart to buy weatherization supplies, apparently it's so cold now, everyone is deciding to weatherize now. we did his first window, took like 10mins to shrink the plastic with his gf's hair dryer. we then did the second window and this time i got my heatshrink gun, literally took 10seconds. (first tool i've lent at my new place)

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I do this every year to every window. My house is fairly large (2,200 square feet), and I have a wood stove and a source of free wood. My gas bills are generally around 60$ in the winter, but other folks on my street have 200+ $ bills December through March. My furnace only runs in the very early morning, but I have gas hot water and dryer.

I love wood heat!

chaos_sl said:

Ima have to take your advice on weatherization. I have owned my home for 6 years now and have not weatherized it in that time other than some really basic stuff like installing a door sweep.

My dishwasher broke yesterday. Today is a sad day, bros. Or it was. Apparently they aren't too difficult to fix so let it begin.

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Dude, dishwashers are super easy. Last one I did (for a friend) took a total of 30 minutes to swap out. Look carefully through the directions, make sure you have everything you need before you start, and give 'er a go!

Bros... my dishwasher magically fixed itself. It was operating this morning and last night, it just wasn't filling with water so it was making this awful noise. I did some research and people pretty much say 90% of the time this indicates an issue with the inlet valve, there is a small filter there that can get blocked or the whole unit can just malfunction. So I get home and decide to try to start it once more before I get underneath it and try the parts and it just works.

So one of two things went wrong, either A: the cold weather somehow froze the line under my dishwasher (seems unlikely) or B: there was some kind of blockage and between me and my wife trying the dishwasher a few times we cleared the blockage. There are strange things afoot in my dishwasher.

Come use your magic on my dishwasher then! Damn thing leaks (that's putting it mildly) every other time I use it. I think the seal is dead, so need to replace that. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

I ended up just replacing mine when it did that. The door gasket cost about 80 bucks plus shipping, and who knows if that would have even been a permanent fix. Dishwashers are relatively cheap now so I just got a new one. It was also old as dirt so that justified the expense of replacing it anyway.

I want to replace my dishwasher. It's noisy as a freaking train. It actually keeps me awake if it's running at night, and the cycle takes 3 hours to complete. Trouble is, it's pretty new, and gets the dishes really clean.

I have friends that have a Bosch dishwasher. It's so quiet that it has a small light that shines on the floor when it's running because you can't hear it, even if you're standing next to it. Jealous, but that also cost almost 10 times what mine cost.

You actually put pizza in the fridge in its box?

You're gonna have a dried out pizza leftover, man.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

I want to replace my dishwasher. It's noisy as a freaking train. It actually keeps me awake if it's running at night, and the cycle takes 3 hours to complete. Trouble is, it's pretty new, and gets the dishes really clean.

I have friends that have a Bosch dishwasher. It's so quiet that it has a small light that shines on the floor when it's running because you can't hear it, even if you're standing next to it. Jealous, but that also cost almost 10 times what mine cost.

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We have a samsung dishwasher and it's super quiet too. It has nothing on the front except three tiny lights the size of peas.

Eyashusa_sl said:

We have a samsung dishwasher and it's super quiet too. It has nothing on the front except three tiny lights the size of peas.

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Mind if I ask what that cost you? The Bosch is about 2,400$, and that's just too much for me to justify spending on a dishwasher when I got one that works well for under 300$.